A Question on Mathew 18.18
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Wed Aug 19 12:32:09 EDT 1998
I would like to respond as succinctly as possible (i.e., without citing the
whole previous correspondence) to Ward Powers' reply to my original
response to Anthony Storm on 8/17.
As I see it, there are three issues in question in Ward's reply: (1) What
is the incidence of the future perfect passive in the GNT? (2) What is the
precise sense of the future perfect passive, generally and specifically in
this passage? (3) What are the implications of the relationship between
protasis and apodosis in the two conditional constructions in this passage?
(1) What is the incidence of the future perfect passive in the GNT?
Maurice O'Sullivan, using Bible Windows, has achieved the same results as I
myself achieved, using Accordance for Macintosh: there are, in fact, no
instances in the GNT of the inflected form of the future perfect
middle/passive (DEDESETAI or DEDHSETAI and LELUSETAI--forms that will be
found more frequently in paradigm charts of Greek grammars than in extant
Greek literature!), and ONLY TWO instances of the periphrastic combination
of future of EIMI + perfect m/p participle: Mt 16:19 and Mt 18:18. These
are, of course, parallel formulations, the first one counched in the second
person singular and appearing in Jesus' statement regarding Peter's
authority, the second one being our passage in the second person plural
addressed by Jesus to the disciples as a group in the discourse on "church
discipline." It is hardly surprising that these two instances should both
appear in the gospel emphasizing (among other things) the authoritative
"Torah" of the institutional EKKLHSIA Jesus is establishing. One other
instance is somewhat questionable: In Lk 12:52 (ESONTAI GAR APO TOU NUN
PENTE EN hENI OIKWi DIAMEMERISMENOI, TREIS EPI DUSIN KAI DUO EPI TRISIN)
the perfect passive participle appears to be adjectival in force rather
than an element in an authentic future passive construction.
(2) What is the precise sense of the future perfect passive, generally and
specifically in this passage?
In my initial response of 8/17 I wrote:
>>I think the more 'literal' English version would be: "Whatever things you
>>bind on earth WILL HAVE BEEN BOUND in heaven." But personally I would
>>prefer to convey the force of the future perfect as a future stative sense:
>>"Whatever things you bind on earth WILL STAND BOUND in heaven."
To this, Ward replies that my 'literal version' is one he agrees with
completely, but he thinks that my second formulation "changes the force of
the meaning." The 'literal' version >indicates that the binding in
>heaven will have taken place PRIOR TO the binding upon earth, whereas your
>new rendering implies something different, namely that once something has
>become bound upon earth it will continue to stand bound in heaven.
Apparently my formulation was not clear enough to express my understanding
of the sense of ESTAI DEDEMENA, or perhaps Ward has misunderstood my
intent. Certainly it was my intent NEITHER to imply any causal relationship
between the earthly binding and the heavenly binding NOR to imply that the
heavenly "boundness" begins with the earthly binding. I do not take hOSA
EAN DHSHTE/LUSHTE in these two clauses to be equivalent to hOTAN
DHSHTE/LUSHTE, although I must admit that Koiné is considerably less
precise in distinguishing temporal and causal conditions that Attic.
The question of the precise sense of the periphrastic future perfect is
made the more complicated by the rarity of the form itself--we don't have
enough instances of it to avoid speculation. Let me say this, however: the
traditional 'literal' English translation of ESTAI DEDEMENA as "will have
been bound" appears to me to underscore prior completion of the binding
before some future terminal point in time; personally I think that what is
underscored is not prior completion but the state of "boundness." That is
to say, I think that the selection of the future perfect passive in the
Greek text is a matter of ASPECT rather than TIME.
I think that there may be some confusion here about the relationship
between events occurring in time and states that are affirmed as holding,
whether at some particular time in the past, present, or future or holding
permanently. So my question is: does ESTAI DEDEMENA mean that the issues in
question on which the disciples are making a decision are going TO HAVE
BEEN DECIDED in heaven? Does it mean that God has already decided these
issues prior to the point at which the disciples reach a decision? OR: does
it mean that these issues stand resolved as bound or
loosed--permanently?--and that those who consider the decision of the
disciples should/will recognize the decision as in accordance with their
resolved status in heaven?
There are at least two problematic aspects to this conditional construction
in Mt 18:18 (and Mt 16:19):
(a) There's something altogether different in this instance from what might
seem a perfect parallel in terms of formal construction: "Whatever you
write on paper in your study will be a literary classic in the world at
large." Here there is a dependent relationship of the apodosis upon the
fulfilment of the condition stated in the protasis. Quite different, and
more like our construction in Mt 18:18, is: "Whatever you discover in your
research in the laboratory will be a truth of the construction of the
natural world." The second apodosis points to a permanent reality while the
first one points to a consequence of a creative event.
(b) It appears that we make a theological/philosophic assumption when we
interpret this passage and the parallel at Mt 16:19: EITHER (a) we make the
'naive' assumption that heavenly 'time' is contemporaneous with earthly
time--and therefore we read the future perfect passive as 'eventive' in
force and emphasizing completion of the heavenly decision-making prior to
the earthly decision-making--as if anything said in one room in a house has
already been said in another room in the same house, OR (b) we make some
such assumption as that earthly time and heavenly reality are temporally
incommensurate: what is authoritative in heaven only becomes authoritative
at some particular point in earthly time. I think that most of us realize
that (a) is inadequate as a framework for understanding a relationship
between 'God's will' and human choosing; I also think that the conditional
construction of our passage is meant to express an assumption of type (b)
in language that must fall into the framework of assumption (a).
(3) What are the implications of the relationship between protasis and
apodosis in the two conditional constructions in this passage?
Ward has endeavored to restate the sense of my wording thus (here I cite
both my original statement and his comment:
>>>Third, what would this passage mean?
>>>a) Are the disciples being given the authority to make declarations to which
>>>heaven will assent?
>>
>>This is, of course, a matter of interpretation, and as such, I assume that
>>even those who agree on the meaning of the Greek text will express
>>different opinions about the meaning. My own view is NOT as you have stated
>>it (that heaven, i.e. God, will assent to decisions that the
>>disciples/church makes) but rather that (a) at the least: the disciples may
>>be confident that their decisions will have the authority of God's will;
>>and perhaps also (b) the disciples cannot make decisions that will NOT be
>>grounded in the fixed authority of God's will.
>
>
>I would wish to alter slightly the way Carl has worded his understanding,
>thusly: (a) The disciples are required to be confident that their
>pronouncements do have the authority of God's will. That is to say, They
>must not make pronouncements which go beyond the known and revealed will of
>God.
>(b) The disciples must not (i.e., are not permitted to) make pronouncements
>which are not grounded in the authority of God's will.
>
>Carl must inform us whether he is in accord with this restated form of his
>wording, or whether we differ in our understanding of these verses.
Although Ward goes on at some length to argue for point (b) in his
statement cited immediately above, I will say what I have to say here once
and not endeavor to respond again to what follows in the remainder of his
post.
To put it in the simplest possible terms, I do not believe that point (b)
is the intent of the dominical saying in Mt 18:18. I grant that (1) it is
an attractive formulation and one which I personally, as an elder of the
Presbyterian Church--PC(USA)--would readily endorse, and I grant also that
(2) it is consistent with what seems to me to be the rhetorical intent of
the arrangement of the discourse on church discipline in Mt 18 as a whole
(that the church has the authority to excommunicate, but it should be so
prudent in the exercise of that authority that it might be better not to
exercise it at all), but I really do not think that is what Mt 18:18, in
and of itself as a Greek text, nor what Mt 16:19, in and of itself as a
Greek text, really means.
I DO NOT discern in the formulation of either of the two Matthaean passages
either a prescription requiring Peter or the church to explore the will of
God and be sure that it is not violated by the decision being made. Nor do
I discern in the formulation of either of the two Matthaean passages a
prohibition of making pronouncements which go beyond the known and revealed
will of God. Much as I think it would be very wise for the church to
observe such a prescription or prohibition when it goes about making
pronouncements, I simply do not see such a prescription or prohibition as
implicit in the Greek texts of Mt 18:18 and 16:19 per se.
What I DO discern in the formulation of these passages is rather--and more
simply--an assertion that, when Peter or the church makes an authoritative
pronouncement, that pronouncement is to be understood as having heavenly
authority. In this respect, I think that they probably do reflect the same
tradition as finds expression in John 20:23 where we find the inflected
present perfect passive rather than the periphrastic future perfect passive
in the apodosis: AN TINWN AFHTE TAS hAMARTIAS AFEWNTAI AUTOIS, AN TINWN
KRATHTE KEKRATHNTAI. To be sure, this statement by Jesus to the disciples
gathered in the upper room at his resurrection epiphany is preceded by his
bestowal of the holy spirit upon them, which may well be understood to
endow them with insight into God's will, but all that I can discern in the
formulation of the Greek text itself is a declaration that the
pronouncements of the disciples on the sins of persons have authoritative
status. I really think that the same thing is being said in Mt 16:19 and
18:18 despite the fact that the morphology and the actual Greek verbs are
different: it is the significance of the perfect as an ASPECT that seems
paramount to me in both places.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad at yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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